Egg-citing!

We'd had a bit of time off due to Easter so it was good to be back on my wheels today. I'd not been slacking though, promise! I have been going to the gym and doing my She'za exercises (she's trying to kill me, I'm sure of it!) and sorting NSO stuffs so I can get my geek fix lol.

I had a complete tard moment this morning and not only forgot my water bottles but also my shiny new Prodent Tech mouth guard - stupidity at its finest eh! Luckily I still had my old mouth guard in my case, phew! So, skates on, pads on (maybe should have brought the bigger helmet to go over the braids but c'est la vie) and off to warm up and stretch. A few stopping drills to start off with an I scoot into the middle to have a quick recap on t-stops. I did hear Jen call out I was to be brave today and not sit things out so I quickly got back onto the track. We started out with a weaving through the pace line drill, fairly slow as we were a proper mixed ability group today. I was glad it was slowish as I'd not run this drill before so was a bit nervous going into it. I watched some of the other girls get down the line as quickly as they could, its all about lateral movement and I know I can do that so with a bit of PMA I was off. I got through it ok and learned that my left lateral is stronger than going to the right and that I need to work on controlling my speed, other than that I was pleased for a first go. To mix it up a bit it was then decided we'd have a double pace line and run the same thing again but going through in twos with your partner - slightly more tricky but again I think I got the hang of it :) A quick water break and discussion on whats happening with the actual A & B teams (members etc) and we were told we'd be focusing more on plays and things we need to learn a bit more which is all good. We'd been wondering what was happening with the teams as its all been a bit hush hush while people were being watched and plans were being made but it was all announced this morning and it seems there were a few surprises, again all good. I am very happy to have been marked up as a B* (B team but not ready for bouting yet as has a few things to work on first), this has given me something to push and work harder for.

Anyways I digress, so drills. Upon having 'cascading/waterfalling' explained to us there were a couple of blank looks, myself included. So 'the vets' (as I'm going to refer to them from now on, they're not exactly veteran skaters but they're a damn sight better than most of us so its sticking) put it into action and asked us to split into groups of 4 to have a go. As we were down on numbers we had 2 groups of 4 and 2 of 3. It was a heck of a lot easier than it sounded, ker-ching, another mini achievement. From there we went on to mini scrim split into team red and blue. We got to practice the different positions with it being explained to us what each position should be doing and why - uber helpful!! It was nice to get more involved with the mini scrims too instead of hanging back, I still need to work on my cardio fitness, I know that and its not going to come overnight but I was keeping up as best I could and doing the best job I could, which included me remembering to whack on the plow stop to avoid back blocking :D

All in all a very positive session, I've got to figure out why my foot went totally dead on me (first time its happened in the GT-50s), maybe the knee pads were too tight, who knows? Also going to look at maybe getting some smaller but nicely padded knee pads, recommendations welcome!

TTFN and thanks for reading

xx

Going for it and through it

A week of non skating is enough to drive anyone nuts, right? After the weekends fun I was looking forward to getting on my skates and trying out my new Fugi wheel set up on the Glan Hafren floor. As per usual my eldest was late home, leading to usual back and forth messages in the car on the way, one day that boy will learn to listen and tell the time!

Anyways, we'd been told we had the hall for 3 hours of skatey goodness instead of the usual two - whoop whoop! We'd also been told we'd be working on some pack work in preparation for our upcoming intra-leagues. Awesome! After seeing the bouts at the weekend I was looking forward to actually giving some stuff a go. After warm ups/stretches I separated off with the beginners and T-Licious to work on my skating technique and stopping, everything seems to be falling into place slowly except for the T stops which I am becoming increasingly frustrated at my own stupidity with. Moving on....the rest of the group was doing timed laps and once they were finished we were told to give it a shot, although we were a larger group so we'd have to be careful! Our aim was 5 laps in 1 minute, I admit I wasn't overly confident BUT manages to think on my feet when one of the girls fell in front of me and got 3 laps in 1 so not too bad :)

From there we were doing some passive blocking (if you had your gum-shields with you) and where I'd have usually stepped away to practise my skating, this time I grabbed my gum-shield and stayed put! We took turns at swapping in and out and trying different blocker positions - I much preferred being a B3 even if I have to work on my blocking and shouting in a gum shield, I am definitely not a B2! Watching some of the better girls was very inspiring and I didn't feel as much of a spare part this session.

The awesome Dave was there to get some test shots of the girls as we are going to be working on a project with him and he also grabbed some head-shots of myself, Rhayfen and T Licious which was a good giggle ( he was such a good sport!)

Time for some cool down laps skating in the opposite direction and after a few I could hear T Licious yelling from the side line 'soft knees, bigger strides, get it going girl!' so that's what I did and it was the quickest I'd skated all night (you know, when you can hear the air wooshing past your ears lol) We've figured out I've got a few 'mental issues' to get over (no comments please lol) - I am very hard on myself for not being able to transfer ice skating skills over to roller skating - saying that I could practise for hours on end daily on ice, where's the roller rink for the same thing in Wales people???? I think I may also have to take some more hits and meet the floor a little more often, being scared of looking stupid is really holding me back but I have to accept its gonna happen in order to improve!

Anyway, I think that's enough from me now, don't forget to check the link people

xxx